Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) congratulated Brown on his win and delivered a zinger:

“In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”

Obama, Pelosi, and gibbs are going to spin this as voters' misdirected anger at problems created by Bush. They don't understand that voters are angry at them because they are autocrats and monarchists; they refuse to listen and like all left/librerals insist that only they know what should be done. In fact, they don't actually believe in democracy very much because they think people are too easily misled and manipulated.

Gooooo... Tea Party! Finally, we've got a patriot "on the inside" who can take on the Marxist traitors and fight the socialist agenda! First stop UHC, after that the Dep't of Edu, and after that, who knows? We might be able to finally end Medicare and SocSecurity if we're lucky!

Rep. Chris Van Hollen... "President George W. Bush and House Republicans drove our economy into a ditch and tried to run away from the accident," he said. "President Obama and congressional Democrats have been focused repairing the damage to our economy."

Someone forgot to tell the democrats that before you repair the damage you need to do two things-Call a tow truck to pull the car from the ditch. Then assess and estimate the actual damage.

They decided to rebuild the whole car in the ditch- whether it needed it or not.

These threads unreadable, as expected. The party that couldn't find it's ass from it's elbow for 8 yrs and got collectively thrown out of office are all now suddenly political experts. And they didn't do a single solitary thing to earn it, aside from screaming in people's faces with bullhorns.

Scot needs Sarah and Sarah needs Scot. The centrists will win, and then enact President Palins agenda to fast track use of our Oil, Gas and Coal until thousands of nuclear power plants can be opened. We will need the money saved from foreign oil imports to pay to tear down thousands of useless windmills.

Brown's statement that the election was for the "People's Seat" resonated so very deeply with voters precisely because Pelosi and Obama have acted as if the governmnet belongs to them as their personal possession and entitlement. In a sense, Brown ran on the platform of restoring democracy to the United States. That is why people were so angry and why they were so enthusiastic in support of his election.

There are 42 states where Obama won by less than he did in MA just last year.

Guess how many Dems facing re-election in those 42 states in just 10 months from now are thinking, "am I next?"

Turns out, those backroom deals - the Louisiana purchase, the Cornhusker kickback, no CSPAN coverage for the backroom conference to reconcile the House and Senate versions - ticked off WAY more people than the entitled classes in DC realized.

Cedarford writes: No doubt Brown's victory will also be termed racist because it might interfere with the new "Free Healthcare for Haitians" program the Left wants done.

Well, if you asked them, the WSJ might say they don't want such a program. However, they're taking steps to make sure it happens.

At the same time as the Dems lost this election, they've also solidified their grip on the Haitian vote and in a way that causes long-term damage to Haiti. The tea party types are mentally and emotionally incapable of either understanding that or doing something effective about it.

No, no, no! All you commenters are looking too narrowly at this (except garage who just doesn't make any sense).

This is an INCREDIBLE opportunity for Obama. Everyone will be looking for him to make a fresh start. Bloggers and commentators and analysts will expect to see a new man emerge. They will give him the benefit of the doubt again after his (relatively gentle) repudiation.

Tomorrow morning, everything in D.C. will look different to those in government. Democrats will see paths available to them that they couldn't see before. Republicans in the Senate will be able to block stuff but will have to explain themselves when they do!!!

Obama and the Democrats could very well wake up tomorrow morning and turn over a completely new leaf. And they will be able to do so after just losing one election, not a whole midterm class.

They could blow it, of course. But the Right has just given the Left a huge opening that wasn't there earlier today.

Enough with Palin. Palin didn't help Brown and Brown couldn't have used her help. Brown is a chance for the Republicans to act like a national party again.

David, to me the basketball metaphor doesn't work. A pivot move is one made by an offensive player who already has the ball. Palin uses "pivot" as if it means "block" or "steal" when it simply doesn't.

Despite gains in November the Republicans were on defense in the replace-Kennedy race. Brown was a huge underdog. This wasn't a pivot. This was an outright steal. This was a Havlicek highlight film.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) congratulated Brown on his win and delivered a zinger:

“In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”

Never a big Webb fan, but the part about integrity is the real problem in DC.

Peter V. Bella said...

Hey, maybe Jim Webb can switch back to the Republican Party- if they'll take him back.

Doubt it. You can only turn your coat so many times and Webb is on his second.

garage mahal said...

These threads unreadable, as expected. The party that couldn't find it's ass from it's elbow for 8 yrs and got collectively thrown out of office are all now suddenly political experts. And they didn't do a single solitary thing to earn it, aside from screaming in people's faces with bullhorns.

Amazing how these threads are unreadable when garage's agenda is going down in flames.

The issue is that the people who are applauding Brown have been saying for 2 or 3 years that the Republican Party had to be more than Assistant Democrats.

Brown to Obama: "Would you like me to drive the truck down to Washington so you can see it?"

That I like.

What else I liked: When Brown effusively and particularly thanked Mitt Romney for his support, encouragement and guidance, Romney just came to the edge of center stage for a brief handshake and then retreated into the crowd. No mugging for the camera.

Maybe we can actually get some normal, decent humans back into positions of political power.

What else I liked: When Brown effusively and particularly thanked Mitt Romney for his support, encouragement and guidance, Romney just came to the edge of center stage for a brief handshake and then retreated into the crowd. No mugging for the camera.

Yes. A class act all the way.

The "wicked pivot" move is also classic basketball. You have to either played the game or been a fan to recognize just how tricky and game changing the pivot movements can be. Pivotal so to speak.

Instapundit has a wonderful idea: everyone should wear brown (get it?) tomorrow to celebrate! I've got some brown pants, and I'll bet everyone in tea party must have something that's brown, whether it's brown shoes, or a brown shirt, or what have you.

Instapundit has a wonderful idea: everyone should wear brown (get it?) tomorrow to celebrate! I've got some brown pants, and I'll bet everyone in tea party must have something that's brown, whether it's brown shoes, or a brown shirt, or what have you.

Ye-es . . . and then we can all look like Sturmabteilung, eh? Or Firefly fans, I guess. No, that actually sounds like a horrible idea.

Balfegor: In my hands, I have proof that you're a Communist mole sent direct from Moscow in order to help "Comrade Obama" - trained from a young age as a Manchurian candidate tasked with spreading World Communism - advance his Cloward-Piven agenda. Well, sir, you will not do it, just as long as we in Tea Party - the only true patriots in the U.S. - have anything to say about it.

- Reid comment in Game Change.- Obama not keeping his transparency and accountability pledge that he ran on.- David "Teddy Kennedy's Seat" Gergen.- Rahm the uncouth.- Barney the unfrank.- Ed the DC Congressman in MA.

Balfegor: In my hands, I have proof that you're a Communist mole sent direct from Moscow in order to help "Comrade Obama" - trained from a young age as a Manchurian candidate tasked with spreading World Communism

Dash it, I thought I was a Chinese Communist shill in the other thread. So hard to keep these allegiances straight.

You have to either played the game or been a fan to recognize just how tricky and game changing the pivot movements can be. Pivotal so to speak.

No. A pivot is what an offensive player does to gain space to either shoot or pass. It may lead to a score, but it is not a dunk, nor a three point play, nor a steal, nor a blocked shot. It is not a reversal and is game changing only to the extent that any other offensive move is game changing. Palin could have called this win a wicked political crossover dribble and it would have had about the same meaning in basketball terms. "Pivot" works rhetorically precisely because of its non-basketball meaning. Its basketball meaning is much more ambiguous.

I knew this moment would come, but I thought it would take a lot longer. It took eight years for the nation to get tired enough of Republicans to turn them out. The Democrats have accomplished the same feat in less than a year. Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer shoud be, and probably are, shaking in their boots. Sadly, but typically for the left, their noses had to be rubbed in it before they would stoop to actually representing the citizens of this country.

garage: note well: Obamacare is dead. Cap-and-tax is dead. And the Democrats still have large majorities--for the time being.

Listening to Coakley's concession speech, and knowing that her political career is essentially over, I started to feel a little sorry for her. But then I thought about Gerald Amirault and quickly recovered my senses.

I always expected the pendulum to swing reliably from left to right to left again, but that expectation has in it the assumption of a complete arc. I never imagined the independents would play such a large part, even as I saw the republicans taught a lesson, insofar as they're teachable which I doubt. I never expected a super majority, and having seen one I never expected it to be squandered so quickly. This causes me to pivot myself and reassess everything.

I'd actually go with "how pissah" it was. I grew up in Boston, and pissah in the Boston sense wasn't so much of a noun -- but in that area, it could've been used totally differently 5 miles away.

I was saddened to see Maddow polluting Doyle's in Jamaica Plain (Boston) with her presence. I love that place. She also soiled common sense by asserting that the Dems only hope for 2010 is to jam Obamacare through.

I have no idea about the sports metaphor, but a friend of mine who voted for Obama and is sorely disappointed said this vote is the best thing for Obama and for the country. I agree. I don't think he will pivot tho, I think he'll try to cram down his agenda with regulations.

I spent part of my childhood near Ashmont in Dorchester (Dot Rat!) and "pissah" is definitely an adjective meaning roughly the same thing as "awesome". My mother couldn't stand it, though, and sometimes charged us a nickel (or a quarter, if we had it) if we said it around her.

BTW - While we were wholly wetted to Massachusetts, the right returned to power in Chile.

Of course the NYT dosent want anybody reading too much into it. The fact that they led with that says a lot.

SANTIAGO, Chile — The election of a billionaire from a right-wing party as Chile’s president on Sunday appears to be less a signal of a regional move to the right than that of a pragmatic convergence of left and right agendas.

The winner, Sebastián Piñera, 60, joins Alan García of Peru, Felipe Calderón of Mexico and Álvaro Uribe of Colombia as clearly right-wing leaders presiding over major Latin American countries, where left-wing candidates with socialist agendas have held more sway in recent years.

Only fourteen months ago, Barack Obama – promising hope, change, bi-partisanship and transparency (!) – won the election in Massachusetts by twenty-seven points. In barely more than a year there has been a turn-around of some thirty-two points. Is all this based on the ineptitude of Martha Coakley?

As much as I would love a return to truly limited government it isn't going to happen. Because the great majority of ordinary Americans don't want it to happen. But they also don't want every last i in their lives to be dotted by the anointed in DC. That's what this election was all about and I fully expect the process of correcting big government overreach to continue in November.

I was talking to a Massachusettsian (small business owner) at the conference I'm at down south, and I asked on Monday if he absentee voted, and he said no, because he was a Democrat and a Republican could not get elected.

I think that's the lesson that both parties should take home. Do not take a seat for granted. The Democrats gave the nomination to someone who felt like she had served her time and deserved the seat. Fatal. Voters can smell that kind of thing from 100 miles away, and if you don't deserve it, good bye. Kudos to the Republican Party for nominating someone who could tap into the anti-establishment vibe. Clearly, the Republican Party in MA is a little bit more in tune with things than the Republican Party in NY's 23rd district.

Special elections are funny things. With no vetting of the candidate by a vigorous primary, it's a great opportunity for the state party structure to show how out of touch it is with the voters.

Mr. Obama has now become a millstone around the neck of any democrat who wants to be relected in a red state--his political capital is approaching zero as a limit--my fondest hope is that the democratic leadership continues to "double down" on an agenda that apparently has been repudiated by even one of the bluest states in the nation. Webb, McClaiskell, Landrieu, Nelson, and Lincoln probably have wet their pants and panties numerous times tonite. That asserted, it remains to be seen if they are willing to buck Harry Reid and take a position against health care reform and the rest of the Obama agenda.

I am betting no because they are beholden to DNC money--Time will tell. But I am guessing that none of these turkeys will be having Mr. Obama campaigning in their districts in the fall. Obama's "charm" does NOT equate to local money.

as a side note, its fascinating to see how much political capital Mr. Obama has burned in one short year.

And the most wonderful thing about the MA election is that is driven the excrable Jeremy into temporary hiding--as soon as he gets his talking points from the netroots, however, he will be back, bigger than life and twice as ugly

Are any of the Republicans crowing here capable of explaining to me, a lowly, humiliated liberal, how Scott Brown's support of Massachusetts universal health care squares with his opposition to health care reform at a national level? Is it simply that Mass deserves universal coverage, and the rest of us can go fuck themselves?

And how does his support of socialized medicine in Mass make him the ideal tea party candidate?

The party that couldn't find it's ass from it's elbow for 8 yrs and got collectively thrown out of office are all now suddenly political experts. And they didn't do a single solitary thing to earn it, aside from screaming in people's faces with bullhorns.

You’re right, they didn’t do anything to earn it, except for not being democrats. This is typical. Democrats overreach, republicans voted in. It would be nice if they were a party that had more going for them than “better than the democrats” but politics isn’t perfect. When in doubt, vote for gridlock.

I can expalin it to you Monty. The Republican Party under Mitt Romney pushed it. Brown followed the party line. Just like Democrats do. It is party politics. Go along to get along.

Also, there is a big difference between an individual STATE doing something versus the Feds. The feds. are incompetent. Also Massachusetts does not imprison people for not having health insurance- Republicans do not believe in draconian punishments.

Oh, and I do not believe in government insurance scams. I do not believe the government should be involved at all.

How did those government banking and mortgage insurance scams work out?

Pogo, I don't think Monty is able to grasp your nuance-fu this morning.

Monty, try this answer on for size:

It doesn't matter. What mattered was that Scott Brown was a knife into the guts of the Democrat establishment. Simply by being elected, he has done more harm to the Democrat Party than any vote he could cast as Senator.

In that respect he's the perfect Tea Party candidate. You just don't understand the whole Tea Party concept, which boils down to this: Enough.

Ah Monty--asking the rhetorical questions--are you that much a fool that you think any politico cares anything other than being elected? Look at President Obama and his promises and how he delivers on them--

I really dont know Scott Brown and how he will vote--I do know his election has, I suspect, shook up the establishment in DC--and thats a good thing--if he screws it up, the people of MA can get rid of him.

I am curious as to why you think republicans should abide by higher standards than democrats--do you really believe Ms Pelosi has drained the swamp? do you really think Mr Obama has delivered on his promises? So whether Scott Brown delivers on his, at this point, I could care less--I do care that his election has some democrats soiling themselves, and thats a good thing.

I can answer your question precisely: Brown's a believer in the Constitution. Ever heard of a little thing called the 10th Amendment?

"Universal" health care is something which is entirely within the scope of individual states, and specifically proscribed against at the federal level.

An federal individual insurance mandate was always a constitutional overreach, but well within the Constitutional powers delegated to states. If individual states want universal health care for their citizens, then they should have it. If New York or California or whatever state wants it, it is within their power to immediately pass it much like Massachusetts did.

But this is much like the gay marriage issue. Democrats who proclaim over and over again that they're for it, but when push comes to shove and they have the power to enact it, somehow they find a way not to do it. Better to ask yourself why every state with Democratic majorities in the state legislature and a Democratic governor haven't already instituted their own version of MassCare if universal health care is such a necessary social good.Why are the netroots supporting the Democratic Party when they have failed to deliver such a basic priority in EVERY SINGLE state in which they have the power to do so???? Why, Monty? Why?

But of course, then you would have to blame someone other than Republicans for the failure of your pet legislation...

Tea Partiers, by and large, are sick and tired of federal power grabs...They want to return the country to what our forefathers intended: as local as possible representation for the policies which most intimately affect voters' lives.

I hope this helps alleviate your professed confusion. But I suspect you're far less confused than you pretend to be, and simply attempting to be snarky. Too bad your snark generator seems to be shorting out. I hear that a bunch of Democratic political operatives are looking for new jobs this morning: maybe you could get them to help you get it back in working order.

The great part of this will be to watch the democrats piss all over each other trying to explain this. What makes this even more delightful is that in the large scheme of things, this is highly irrelevant; Democrats still have a majority of Congress. My fear is that Democrats will come to their senses and start passing small bills that are just as insidious as the health care bill, though not on the same scale.

When I was playing ball in the late sixties and early seventies, the main dispute in b-ball was between two types of play. What was termed “White” basketball and what was “Black” basketball.

“White basketball” was stodgy defense oriented play with everything running around set plays with such things as the pick and roll and defensive traps used to let the coaches really control the game. The point guard ran things and even when there was a quick fast break the team would settle into its offense that the coach would call from the bench. It was epitomized by the New York Knicks under Red Holzman and was the style of the NBA. Even though the real stars of the team were black players like Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe, their individual brilliance was subjugated to the team concept.

“Black basketball” was fast freelance “playground” basketball with an emphasis on individual talent and creativity. Epitomized by the ABA style of play it’s leading practioners were stars like Julius Erving (Dr.J) and George McGinnis taking a rebound and going from end to end to end the play with a circus dunk at the other end.

In my mind the Republicans play the NBA style. Defense oriented they slowly walk the ball up the court and dump it into the big guys who they expect to score or at least get fouled so they can fun up the points.

The Democrats run the ABA style fast and furious with everyone fighting for control of the ball and chucking it up and trying to score.